Telling students to avoid books containing "wayward beliefs" implies we are incapable of thinking for ourselves. The removal did not give parents the freedom to parent, but instead attacked freedom of thought.
A Florida high school selected an award-winning novel for its school-wide summer reading list. But a few parents objected to some of the language in the book, and it was promptly pulled.
One parent called an award-winning young adult novel "smut"-- and her complaint was enough to have it removed from a summer reading list for honors students.
Parents in Florida are upset that third graders will be reading books they say promote Islam.
A graphic novel was challenged in a New Mexico high school. A review committee voted to keep it. So why isn't the book on the shelves? A local reporter dug into the story.
Residents of one Texas town want two LGBT books removed from the children's section of a public library. That is unconstitutional. But a plan to move the books to the adult section is similarly problematic.
The Buncombe school district has decided--once and for all--that one parent's objection to the novel The Kite Runner shouldn't prevent other students from reading it.
New Hampshire governor Maggie Hassan vetoed a bill that would have forced teachers to notify parents about any course material “used for instruction of human sexuality or human sexual education."
A North Carolina district should stick to its policy guidelines and keep The Kite Runner in an honors English class.
A New Hampshire bill to require parental notification about "human sexuality or human sexual education" topics in schools deserves to be vetoed.
Has the governor of North Carolina nominated a book censor to the state Board of Education?
Good news: The Coeur d'Alene school board voted to keep John Steinbeck's classic novel in the classroom.
Is John Steinbeck's classic Of Mice and Men too controversial for a classroom of ninth graders? That's what some in an Idaho town are saying.
Don’t you hate it when one person ruins it for the rest of us? Teachers of Asheville, your school district has your back. So do we.
Can one parent effectively get a book banned from an entire classroom? That's exactly what's happening in one North Carolina town.
A grandparent tries--yet again--to remove Sherman Alexie's award-winning novel from a school in North Carolina.
Sherman Alexie's award-winning young adult novel is challenged yet again-- but this time the school district violated its own policy by pulling the book without a formal review.
The ALA's list of the top 10 challenged and banned books includes plenty of familiar names, and teaches some larger lessons about diversity in literature.
A review committee in Wallingford, Ct. decided to keep a popular young adult novel in the English curriculum. But the superintendent overruled that decision. Does his decision make legal or educational sense?
A parent complains that an acclaimed graphic novel on the shelves at a New Mexico high school library is really child pornography. How will the school respond?
Local Tea Party activists fail in their efforts to remove world history textbooks they see as 'Islamic indoctrination.'
Who gets to decide how history is taught? ACT! for America, a grassroots political advocacy group fighting "Islamofascism," is attempting to exert control over World History in Charlotte County, FL. NCAC has responded.
Can curatorial decisions about what belongs on library shelves, museum walls, or classrooms ever constitute censorship? It’s a blurry line that a children’s specialist in Ohio’s Greenville Public Library may have crossed when rejecting two donated Rush Limbaugh books.
A Colorado school district has dropped a plan to 'review' an AP History framework that conservatives claim is "sharply left-leaning." But this fight over how to teach history isn't over by a long shot.
Newly released documents show that the 2013 decision by Chicago Public Schools to remove Marjane Satrapi's popular graphic novel from the district's schools was just as dubious and censorious as it first appeared.
To advocate on behalf of those who cannot speak, sometimes it's necessary to understand what it feels like to be silenced. Judy Blume is a living testament to this very truth, and, for that, we salute her today, on her birthday.
Should "community standards" play a part in what is taught in the classroom? This is the question we asked Highland Park, Tx. school officials in a February 6 letter about new proposals to deal with controversies over certain reading materials.
Black History Month is as good a time as any to remember that some of the most frequently banned, censored or challenged books were written by African-American authors.
Gilbert, Arizona was a censorship flashpoint last year, when the school board tried to remove pages from a biology textbook. This year they beat back an effort to remove the classic novel Beloved from an AP reading list.
Good news from Delaware: One school district dropped a plan to limit students' access to certain books, and in another district the effort to alter health curriculum in accord with religious objections appears to have failed.
Hanover School District’s Fix Could Actually Make Things Worse NEW YORK, January 13, 2015 — The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) is cautioning school officials in Hanover County, VA that policy changes intended to reduce complaints about instructional materials could actually do the opposite. At a school board meeting tonight, three changes to board policies are being mulled over in response to controversies surrounding the use [...]
School officials resisted a challenge to a documentary film. But their new policies on instructional materials, while intended to reduce complaints, could actually do the opposite--giving would-be censors more power over what is taught in class.
National Coalition Against Censorship Contact: Peter Hart 212.807.6222 // c: 732.266.4932 // [email protected] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: First Amendment Groups Say No to Proposed Book Rating Policy in Appoquinimink NEW YORK, January 12, 2015 — The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) is urging Delaware's Appoquinimink School District against adopting potentially restrictive book assignment and checkout policy. The district’s new system proposes to [...]
Update: Victory for KRRP! The Appoquinimink School District has chosen not to implement new rules that would have allowed parents to sign forms barring their children from reading anything deemed too “mature.”
UPDATE: After receiving NCAC's letter, pastor and school board member Shaun Fink has struck back against NCAC. Contrary to his earlier public statements, Fink now claims that he never called for the exclusion of materials on LGBT content or STD, HIV, and pregnancy prevention. At December 2's health curriculum subcommittee meeting, he also characterized NCAC's letter as a form of intimidation for the [...]
NCAC is joined by the American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the National Council of Teachers of English, PEN American Center, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators in a follow-up letter sent to the Highland Park Independent School District in TX. In the letter, we urge [...]
Today, NCAC was joined by the American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression (ABFFE), the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (ALA), and PEN America in a letter sent to the Kings Canyon Unified School District in Reedley, CA. In the letter, the signatories expressed [...]
A call to "reject any proposal to restrict the curriculum of students to accommodate the views, values and preferences of some, and instead to rely on the professional judgment of educators."
NCAC and other free speech organizations sent a letter to the Waukesha School District in regard to efforts made to remove Looking for Alaska by John Green, Chinese Handcuffs by Chris Crutcher, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini in classrooms and libraries, and to reject the idea of "red-flagging books that deal with sex, rape, extreme violence and brutality, and animal cruelty." In a previous [...]
NCAC along with seven other other free speech organizations sent a letter to the Riverside Unified School District urging the School Board to reinstate The Fault in Our Stars by John Green to middle school libraries. A reconsideration committee voted to remove the book after a parent of a middle school student raised objections to the novel's language and sexual content. The [...]
